- 1脾氣拗、愛唱反調的（美式口語；不是「普通的」）
Ornery is informal American English — especially Southern and country talk — for someone (or an animal) who is stubborn, a bit angry, and likely to do the opposite of what you want. An ornery mule; an ornery neighbour who will not sign the form. It can sound fond as well as cross: “that ornery old man” may be said with a half-smile. Though actually, it began as a rushed, dialect way of saying ordinary. First it meant “plain, nothing special,” then “rather poor or unpleasant,” and only later “difficult and contrary.” British speakers almost never use it; they would say stubborn, awkward, or cantankerous. It still sounds spoken and folksy, not like a school-book word.
組成A contracted dialect pronunciation of ordinary; the sense slid from “plain” to “poor/unpleasant” to “stubborn and hard to deal with.”
同家族的字
- ordinaryornery began as a dialect contraction of ordinary
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
orneryadj/ˈɔːnəɹi/
- 1
informalDisagreeable, stubborn, and troublesome to deal with; cantankerous.
- Seemingly here was an intruder who was violating custom. Moreover, the partners had come to look upon this exceedingly rich district as their exclusive property. And so their indignation was extreme. "The low-down, ornery cuss!" said Dobbs. "The nerve of him, crowdin' in on us, just as if there wasn't lots of other places for him to go!"
- Through Michael sped the thought: 'Could I make her jealous?' And he was shocked at it. A low-down thought—mean and ornery!
- 2
informalTroublesome to deal with in a good way; mischievous, prankish, teasing.
- 3
obsoleteOrdinary, commonplace; hence, inferior, plain-looking, unpleasant.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。